We all require nutritious meals for our survival. So, the people who grow and harvest our food should be near the top of our list of workers who are rewarded for their labor, right? But that has become wishful thinking as profit margins continue to shrink and more family farms are threatened with bankruptcy each year. Agricultural innovations and revolutions continue to spread, leaving their footprints across California’s landscapes; but current trends too often leave small farmers struggling to pay the bills and keep food on their own tables, all while our popular culture celebrates the latest get-rich-quick millionaires and billionaires who may provide no essential goods or services. California has been the number one agricultural state in the nation for at least seven decades. Our state produces more varieties of farm products than any other state (including some crops that are only grown here commercially), totaling more than 50 billion dollars of income each year.

Disturbing questions and contradictory data ring out from the Golden State and spread to farming communities throughout the country. How are these paradoxical trends affecting life on the farms and our ability to provide healthy, affordable food to the people? What is the future of agriculture as small farms struggle to retain young people who might continue family traditions? Here, we will dive into these controversies and on to the farms to find some answers. We start with a small regenerative family farm and we end with the largest winery in the world, both just outside Turlock in the San Joaquin Valley, between Modesto and Merced. Our guide is Alison McNally, Associate Professor of Geography & Environmental Resources at Cal State University Stanislaus, and this trip is sponsored by the California Geographical Society.

This story is not intended to answer all the questions or solve the many perplexing problems encountered in California’s breadbasket. We have addressed some of them in previous stories on this website and in past publications. For instance, you are probably aware of the controversial debates about how, for decades, big ag has grown at the expense of smaller family farms in California and across much of the nation. Though movements such as farm-to-table encourage sustainable harvests from smaller local farms, many larger agribusinesses have also discovered the economic advantages of more sustainable and/or organic farming on much larger scales. I’ll leave it to you to navigate through the rabbit holes of research and mountains of case studies (such as from UC Davis) that weigh the pros and cons and long-term advantages and disadvantages of small- to large-scale farming. Here, we take you to experience both extremes.

We’re plowing right into the fields for some first-hand experiential learning, guided by the people who work on the farms every day. We start with a morning tour and informative customized hayride through Burroughs Family Farms and we end with an afternoon at E & J Gallo Ranch. There are some surprising connections to our previous story on this website since, on a clear day, you can see some Yosemite National Park high country when you look east from some of these farmlands. And remember the Merced River than runs through Yosemite Valley? It continues downhill to become a water source for Gallo Ranch, after upstream waters are released from Lake McClure to meander into the San Joaquin Valley. And like the previous story, I am using my personal field notes fortified with a bit of background research. All images are originals taken by me with no tampering or manipulation.

Burroughs Family Farms started about 130 years ago in the Berkeley Hills. As Berkeley grew, they paid Burroughs to move toward the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where four dairies were established up to the 1970s.  (We are told that Jersey Island, located where the East Bay meets the Delta, was named after their cows.) When the California Department of Water Resources later bought them out, the family conducted a study, which finally landed Burroughs Family Farms just east of Turlock. They became reestablished as a high producing dairy farm, though their dairies have recently shut down within such a punishing market.

This is where we meet Rosie Burroughs. We launch into her world of regenerative practices that emphasize how healthy soils grow better-tasting, more nutritious foods. She immediately repeats a valuable lesson from the movie, Common Ground: “If you take care of the soil, the soil will take care of you.” And from Rosie and the next film she recommends, Symphony of the Soil, we learn that “we don’t grow plants, we grow soil and soil grows plants.” She emphasizes how healthy soils encourage infiltration of rainfall to become giant water-holding sponges that are also more pest-resistant. Such sustainable soil water banks increase productivity while requiring less irrigation, cutting the need for synthetic industrial chemicals that may increase yields in the short term, but poison the land and decrease the quality of yields in the long term.    

The Burroughs nurtured 20,000 acres for the three years necessary to convert it to organic farming and they’ve been designated organic for 20 years. Now, they grow almonds, beef, chicken, walnuts, and various other products on 12,000 acres. But too many of California’s small farmers have been forced to become price takers rather than price setters. Rosie tells the story of how big ag pushed them out of the dairy business by undercutting their prices and dominating the market. Another unexpected challenge appeared in the form of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), enacted in 2014, designed to ensure the sustainable use of groundwater resources across the state. The one-size-fits-all act restricts use of protective ground cover due to perceived high transpiration rates. Rosie argues that their ground cover is actually cutting evaporation and protecting surfaces from erosion in the long run, as they use grazing sheep and other natural trimming techniques that return nutrients into the soil: “One of the ways they protect and enhance the soil, air and water is by growing cover crops. Continuous ground cover with alternative crops suppresses weeds, improves soil structure, sequesters carbon and attracts beneficial insects and native pollinators. For organic crop production, it also provides nitrogen in lieu of chemical fertilizers.”

Though they are busy shipping their fresh farm products around the country, Rosie and family were eager to share their expertise and passion for all-in-the-family sustainable regenerative farming, and we were eager to hear more; but we must move on.   

It’s time to make the short drive south toward Snelling, where we will learn from farmers who work in what seems to be worlds apart from the Burroughs family … until you look a little closer. This Gallo Ranch was purchased by the Gallo family in the 1970s. Alfalfa and apples have been replaced with rows of grapevines. Their three different acreages in this region (Livingston, Merced, and Turlock) are enormous compared to Burroughs Family Farm, as these landscapes and farming economies define volume-scale winemaking. Founded in 1933 by Ernest and Julio Gallo, their family-owned company became the world’s largest winery, recently raking in revenues of more than $5 billion/year with a total net worth more than $12 billion. 

Brent Sams is waiting for us. Brent has been working for Gallo as a viticulture research scientist since 2012. He earned his BA and MA in Geography and his Ph.D. in horticulture and has been researching to understand how fruit chemistry (and quality) changes over time and space. He has used field measurements to test fruit and light exposure, canopy temperature, and soil cores, sensors to measure electric conductivity and elevation mapping, and remote sensing from satellite, unmanned aerial aircraft, and commercial aircraft. It’s a high-tech GPS/GIS environment where updated yields/acre maps illustrate resources put in versus yield coming out. We noted how Gallo employs around 25-30 Ph.D. research scientists on farms scattered around California and beyond. Add paid environmental science internship opportunities. And since Gallo owns only 10-20% of its supply, Sams works with many other farmers who sell to Gallo. In addition to 100 different kinds of wines from around the world, they also sell juice and color concentrates.

We also met Gallo’s “smart” autonomous tractor. This $60,000 investment exemplifies (with an exclamation point) how farming is changing fast in California. Turn it on, put it into gear, and the rest is done remotely, sometimes throughout the night. It becomes obvious that, with fewer farmers and more scientists and automation, this is NOT your grandparents’ family farm.

Like Burroughs Family Farms, Gallo uses drip irrigation, but this ranch is also well situated with riparian rights and prior appropriation water from the nearby Merced River. They also plant and occasionally cut nitrogen-fixing ground cover, but they don’t rely on groundwater sources here. Water reigns king as each vine requires between 10-20 gallons/week, and even more during heatwaves. Pumps are only capable of pushing water through about ¼-mile of drip lines at a time. 

The calendar is also king on these farms. Pruning season peaks during cold and damp January and February and the harvest season runs through August, September, and October, but that has been changing throughout California. Brent provides evidence of the impacts of climate change. Harvest seasons have been getting earlier as grapes ripen faster in higher temperatures. Varieties that require cold nights and big swings in diurnal temperatures have been moving north. Recent extended extreme heat waves are also impacting harvests. So, you might appreciate how the orientation of these rows of grapevines can determine the difference between harvest successes and failures. Rows in California are usually oriented north-south to expose the plants and grapes to just the right balance of sunlight, temperature, and humidity as sun angles change throughout the day. (Hilly terrain, such as in the Napa-Sonoma region, often presents exceptional challenges to these industry norms.) The result is an orderly, repetitious, monoculture landscape that contrasts with the diversity imagined on traditional American family farms.

In contrast to some big ag stereotypes, Gallo has demonstrated it is in this for the long run; they’ve invested in a range of sustainable farming methods that regularly win awards and polish their public reputation. And why not be proud of it? Here are some brief excerpts from their website: “As a family-owned company, GALLO has kept sustainable practices as one of our core values since 1933. Our commitment to our founders’ vision has expanded to not only protecting​ our land for future generations, but also improving the quality of life of our employees, and enhancing the communities where we work and live.”

And from the Gallo Sustainability Impact Report, “At Gallo, we are leaders in sustainability through our enduring commitment to environmental, social, and economic practices so that future generations may flourish.”… “All of the Winery’s coastal vineyards participate in a unique land management plan started by the co-founders where for every acre of land planted in vineyard, one acre of property is set aside to help protect and enhance wildlife habitat. … E. & J. Gallo Winery has led the way in developing and refining new environmentally friendly practices such as minimizing the use of synthetic chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides, recycling and reusing processed water, creating new wetlands and protecting existing riparian habitats.” Perhaps Gallo has more in common with Burroughs Family Farms than we may have originally thought. 

Whether from a small family farm or big ag, much of our food and drink is produced in the Central Valley. These field experiences into the heart of the valley help us appreciate the work that goes into growing and harvesting what we take for granted, and in decoding the lasting imprints these people and their industries leave on our landscapes, economies, and cultures.

A big thanks goes to Professor Alison McNally for organizing and leading the field trip. Other leaders at Cal State University Stanislaus (such as Professor, Department Chair, and CGS President Peggy Hauselt and professor and former CGS President Jennifer Helzer) worked to make the conference such a success. I am forever indebted to the professionals in the California Geographical Society for championing more than three decades of action-packed scholarly conferences that have informed my teaching and writing, including so many stories on this website. This year, I am particularly grateful for receiving their prestigious Outstanding Educator Award for 2025. After four decades of research, teaching, writing, and putting my heart into such a rewarding profession, this unforgettable conference was icing on my career cake. Thanks to all!    

Here are additional sources for those interested in regenerative agriculture:

Sustainable Harvest International

Foodtank

Farmsteaders Documentary

Alison Mcnally also sent these sources recommended by Rosie:

Common Ground – https://commongroundfilm.org/ streaming on Amazon – a follow up to the film “Kiss the Ground”, Common Ground takes a look at regenerative agriculture and the importance of it as an alternative to conventional agriculture. Some of the footage was taken at Burroughs Family Farms.

TED talk featuring Dr. Jonathan Ludgren (founder and director of Ecdysis Foundation) (13 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okgGmohpaJQ – 

Finally, another Alison recommendation: Jean-Martin Bauer, who has managed food programs and worked as a food security analyst for the United Nations World Food Programme around the globe, is the author of The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the Twenty-First Century.

THE END

The post Big Ag Vs. Small Regenerative Farming first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

The development and use of affordable renewable energy and our increasingly more efficient use of resources is keeping tons of pollution out of our air, water, and soil, while saving Californians billions of dollars in the long run. Millions of people and entire ecosystems are healthier as California helps to lead the nation and the world toward a cleaner and more promising energy future. As the state’s per capita energy use and greenhouse gas production continues to decline, individuals, households, and businesses have discovered a treasure trove of long-term savings that can be routed to improve the quality of our living and working environments. But since the devil is often in the details, what are these sources of energy and how reliable are they?   

The Golden State is progressing toward a challenging goal of 100% “clean” electricity by 2045. But it is important to note that, by 2022, such “clean” sources (according to the California Energy Commission) included all renewables (39+%), large hydropower (≈11%), and what remains of nuclear (≈11%) in the state. Solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and small hydropower are considered renewables. But there’s something missing here that I’ll call small solar power (often referred to as passive), though it isn’t small at all, since it’s working for us everywhere on every day and it is the source of almost all the energy that surrounds us. 

The energy industry often divides active solar into two categories: solar thermal and solar photovoltaic. The larger projects have generated tons of controversy. For instance, the Ivanpah solar thermal facility, with a price tag of more than $2 billion, was touted as the world’s largest. You can’t miss it if you are driving through the Mojave Desert along Interstate 15 just before crossing into Nevada. This is where once wild open desert has been covered with giant mirrors to focus intense sunlight toward 450-foot towers where high temperature steam turbines generate electricity. The electricity is sold to you through companies such as PG&E and SCE, but millions of dollars of electricity are lost through wires transmitting it to distant urban centers. Meanwhile, the desert along Interstate 10 to Arizona is being covered with photovoltaic panels on BLM land that is now known as The Riverside East Solar Energy Zone. This includes the sprawling Chuckwalla Valley, which has become a sea of solar panels that has also been advertised as the largest such project in the world. In both of these gargantuan solar energy “farms”, enormous expanses of open public desert ecosystems have been sacrificed to gather and concentrate solar energy and convert it to electricity that then must be sent out to urban areas more than 100 miles distant.  

As with other major power plants, these solar “farms” come with plenty of baggage. Habitat destruction haunts each project. Thousands of birds and other wildlife have been unintentionally killed each year by these behemoth projects. Precious groundwater supplies have been threatened. Desert dwellers and cultures that include Native Americans have also been impacted.

Desert devotees wonder why more solar panels are not being installed on top of existing warehouses, parking structures, homes, and businesses, in urban areas where the energy is being used. Even when the cost of storage batteries is added to solar installations, the payoff time is often less than 10-15 years, when consumers begin getting their solar energy for free for the life of panels that can last more than 30 years. And when homes or businesses with existing solar systems are sold, the seller gets more than their investments back from the added sales prices. Those who don’t want to pay upfront costs and take responsibility for owning and maintaining their solar systems are enticed by lucrative leasing arrangements; customers benefit from less expensive energy after paying a monthly fee to the companies who own and lease out the systems. Millions of rooftops and other urban spaces (including those for vital battery storage) are still waiting to harvest and store otherwise wasted and increasingly competitive solar energy for the taking. So why aren’t more families and businesses being encouraged to make such smart investments in otherwise underused urban spaces that can guarantee long-term profits?

You can see why the chorus of concerned citizens and energy experts advocating for more efficient, local energy production is growing louder. They argue that many of the most competitive sources of future energy can be found on our roofs and in our cities where energy is used and that destroying distant public lands and ecosystems is not sustainable. They also argue that local energy issues and problems can be more efficiently addressed with local solutions that help consumers gain control of their power sources. Similar controversies have swirled around some of the ubiquitous wind turbines that have sprouted above rural and remote regions across the state. I address some of these issues in my new book, The California Sky Watcher.   

And that leads us to the simpler and more pragmatic sustainable energy solutions sometimes known as passive solar. They often involve common-sense and time-tested planning with nature in practical ways that will allow us to save money, gain control of our energy destiny, and improve the quality of our living and working environments. Such solutions have been under our noses and calling out to us all this time.  

Many of us have already discovered the advantages of greenhouses, skylights, sunroofs, and sunrooms that allow natural sunlight in, rather than relying on artificial energy-consuming light and heat sources. And this reminds us that almost all the energy surrounding us is direct or indirect solar. It’s the energy plants use to grow and that animals store as they eat. Whether you are a vegetarian or an omnivore, you are using indirect solar energy to read this page and walk across the room. As covered in stories from my new book and on this website, solar energy creates temperature gradients that build pressure gradients that propel the wind. The sun’s energy evaporates water and lifts moisture into the air to fuel storms that provide life-giving precipitation. There it is, always surrounding us. Because there’s far more solar energy than we will ever need, we need to continue to find more efficient ways of harvesting, storing, and using it.

The simplest acts include opening windows during the day and closing them before sunset during the cool season. During warm summers, keep them open at night through early mornings and then close them when daytime temperatures rise outside. You will keep fresher, healthier air circulating during the comfortable open times and prevent sick building syndromes that can develop in closed spaces. Investments in efficient ventilation systems also cut AC costs in the long run. Plant deciduous vegetation along south-facing walls to shade the hot side of the house during summer; they will lose their leaves to allow more light in during winter. Follow the source of light and heat by keeping track of the sun’s location in your sky as it changes during the day and the seasons. Eaves and overhangs can be just the right length to shade walls and windows from high summer sun during summer afternoons and then allow direct sunlight to warm those surfaces when sun angles are lower during winter. Think of the dozens of other ways you can reconnect to the natural world in and around your own living and working spaces, relieve nature deficit disorders, reap the physical and mental health benefits, and save money in the process. After all, we are fortunate to live in plein air California, not Chicago.

The best California architects know how to design smart buildings with more sophisticated passive solar features. It might take a little more planning ahead, but such short-term investments will lead to long-term rewards that just keep on giving. Double-paned energy-efficient windows (with Energy Star ratings) and doors and improved insulation have become the standard for good reasons: these upgrades cut energy costs as they allow you to better regulate the air in your home or business when temperatures become uncomfortable outside.  Here is just one website from the U.S. Department of Energy that summarizes passive solar strategies. Here is another good introduction. You can also encourage efforts to become more efficient by supporting nonprofit organizations such as Sustainable Works. They have helped thousands of students, residents, and businesses save money while they also cut pollution and save our valuable resources.

We all use energy that can have negative impacts. But we are rediscovering how to create more comfortable, healthier living environments that will limit those impacts and save money in the long run. Sometimes it’s as simple as going back to nature. But it also requires that we work together. And in the bigger picture, that’s where Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) has made major progress across the state. At least 25 CCAs serve more than 200 communities in California that work together to pool their electricity loads, increase efficiency and grid resilience, and encourage renewable energy projects. The combination of simpler solar solutions outlined here, CCAs, and countless related efforts are moving the state toward a much greener and cleaner energy future … and proving how every Californian can make a positive difference.    

Check out these sources for more:

Community Choice Aggregation (CCA)

Inside Climate News reports on groundwater stresses from desert solar projects.

California Energy Commission

Passive Solar

A Passive Solar General Intro and Summary

NOAA Solar Calculator

Sustainable Works

California Academy of Sciences
The Academy’s Green Roof

California Air Resources Board Greenhouse Gas Inventory

US Green Building Council

One Architect’s Top 15 California Showcases

The Guardian Article

The 2023 Annual Global Climate Report summarizes how California is just another example of more general temperature trends around the globe.

The post Simpler Solar Solutions first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Since this story is only a quick snapshot in early April, 2020, we don’t know how much pain and suffering and destruction COVID-19 virus will finally leave in its wake. But as people (especially the most vulnerable, such as the already ill and elderly) are sick and dying, medical services are being strained beyond their capacities. Mental health experts are urging all of us to reevaluate and differentiate between what we perceive as inconveniences and real problems in our lives.

Our reactions to this pandemic are transforming the state’s people, cultures, landscapes, and economies faster than most could have imagined. How can anyone attempt to describe or predict the final extent of COVID-19 impacts on our state at this stage in the battle? We have an obligation to share at least a few relevant observations here as we continue to consider and research new ways to rediscover the Golden State. You are welcome to fill in the many gaps as we also invite you to explore with us a few iconic landscapes at this pivotal time in California history. All images (unless otherwise noted) were captured from the Malibu hills and coast to Santa Monica and Venice Beach during the first days of the lockdown. They were all taken from legally-accessible sites during early stages of the pandemic response, while adhering to all health guidelines. Some sites have since closed. We are all reminded that public officials are struggling to do their jobs, so be responsible and stay safe.

It is already clear that our state and our Rediscovering the Golden State project, at least for 2020, has evolved into two narratives: before and after COVID-19. The new Coronavirus and our responses to it are rewriting the human geography that we have researched and shared in our publication and our web page.  

An eerie, foreboding quiet has been cast over our city streets and many other private and public spaces, featuring odd AWOL-like human landscapes. It reminds us of those science fiction movies with images of hunkered-down neighborhoods waiting for the terrifying monster to stomp through. This tempts the geographer in us to rename the virus Godzilla-19. Will the monster destroy us or will we destroy ourselves and our communities preparing for and fighting it? After this pandemic spreads so much inconvenience, pain, and suffering, can a new and improved California emerge? If you are reading this after the crisis, you may already have formulated some answers.

As of the start of April, how have 40 million people in the most culturally diverse place on the planet reacted to our state shut down? At first, within otherwise seemingly abandoned cities and suburbs during daylight hours, some families could be seen walking and playing together in parks, beaches, and the other open public spaces that have become so precious to Californians, especially as we were blocked out of those meticulously planned private landscapes that were designed to encourage us to spend our dollars. More recently, officials have been closing even our shared public outdoor spaces to keep the virus from spreading, as some became overcrowded with visitors trying to escape their limited confines.

Rural Californians working in primary industries may have, at first, had to make the fewest adjustments to adhere to the temporary COVID-19 protocols. You might not have even noticed pandemic symptoms in some of the state’s more rural and remote communities where annual incomes and the cost of living are relatively low. The big exceptions include communities dependent on tourism and ecotourism, where their streets and hospitality businesses are left empty and severely damaged.

Common sense must rule as geographical and spatial epidemiologists monitor Godzilla’s destruction and work to educate us about the details. Will the monster have its way with California cities as it did NYC? Will the pandemic quickly infect the densest urban neighborhoods and gradually trickle into rural areas? Will it hit certain ethnic groups harder than others? We already know that the elderly are most vulnerable. Will the per capita infection and illness rates be higher in working class or wealthy communities, homeless or prison populations? Will changing seasons slow or accelerate the spread? Did our quick, proactive response slow (flatten) California’s per capita infections and deaths curves compared to many other states and nations, or was there something else about our geography that made us unique? There are too many questions and unknown variables in these uncharted waters during this uncertain spring, but the final maps promise to reveal fascinating mysteries and hidden tragedies.

We already declare many losers in economic geography, particularly in a state where such activities as tourism, transportation, manufacturing, international trade, entertainment, and services (each worth hundreds of billions of dollars) recently fueled our economic engines to soar over $3 billion, more than 14% of U.S. GDP. Sober fiscal realities become clear when you check the economic specifics in Chapter 10 of our publication: our state’s economy is being crippled by this devastating Godzilla. And the catastrophe is spreading faster than at any time in history: note the millions of able workers applying for unemployment.  

Past mistakes haunt us…again. While California was smart to boost its rainy day funds during the last decade of growth that built the 5^th largest economy in the world, the Federal Government debt was allowed to balloon in reckless fashion. The Godzilla-19 crisis promises to quickly deplete our once impressive state surplus, while the nation’s debt will skyrocket to historic and perhaps unmanageable or even unimaginable levels. We will all have enormous debt burdens that could last for generations and it will show in every future decision we make, from building infrastructure, to supporting education, and from funding our parks, to supplying vital social services. It is too late to encourage the discipline that could have built rewarding household and government rainy day funds. The rainy day has arrived.

Other industries, each worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, are playing key roles in keeping us alive, sometimes literally. The global epicenter of biotechnology industries is in the Golden State, particularly from southern Orange County through San Diego County. Will treatments and cures for the COVID-19 scourge be discovered here? The high technology capital of the world remains in the Silicon Valley and has spread beyond the Bay Area, spilled in to the Central Valley, and leaped into coastal Southern California. These technologies have become crucial in supporting the schooling and working and social networking from home that has kept our economy from crashing, while guarding millions from getting sick. As just one example, it is no surprise that Zoom Video Communications is headquartered in San Jose. Other communications technologies and delivery companies have allowed millions of Californians to purchase and receive vital products without risky human contact. So it is true that if California sneezes, the nation will get sicker. All eyes necessarily turn to our overburdened health care industry.

The crash in service industries that require human contact and the inaccessibility of many technologies to low-income Californians promises to increase inequities, poverty rates, and the already record gap between the rich and poor. Those ubiquitous delivery trucks that have converged on higher income neighborhoods are serving far fewer working class households where there are people who have lost their tips and weekly paychecks and now can barely afford their necessities, much less pay for deliveries. Smaller, struggling businesses are folding or being gobbled up by those with the capital to ride out this unprecedented storm.

This pandemic offers too many opportunities to reexamine ourselves, our priorities, our neighborhoods, our landscapes, and how we evaluate the issues and solve the problems that confront us, the very topics we have been addressing in this project that has evolved throughout its more than 20 years. We are forced to consider potentially devastating impacts on the most vulnerable populations that include those stuck in poverty without adequate health insurance, more than 100,000 homeless people, and more than 100,000 prisoners in the state. We are startled to see how our living environments improve without the congestion, traffic gridlock, and air pollution that plagued many of our cities when the economy was growing full steam ahead. The pain and suffering brought by COVID-19 offers renewed opportunities to apply geography and “to place California’s human and physical resources, issues, problems, and landscapes in a geographic perspective”, as stated in the last chapter of our publication.

When faced with such a crisis, we are forced to refocus on geographic realities that we have too often ignored. In the long term, unfortunate synergies are growing from local to global scales, such as the effects of climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, the introduction of aggressive non-native invasive species, and our accelerated encroachment into wild spaces. These trends that define the Anthropocene also conspire to produce even more potent future Godzillas than the one we are fighting. And is everyone recognizing the uncanny parallels in our debates about how to handle this crises and more long-term environmental challenges such as climate change? Overreact by investing now and we might save ourselves in the long term at some short-term expense; underreact and we might allow an uncontrolled experiment with unknown consequences to run amok and destroy us. Should we ignore the scientific evidence that commands us to flatten the curve, we risk unleashing an unimaginable wrecking ball into our communities. This Godzilla has reminded us that nature is in charge no matter how we might try to ignore her. And so, as of today, most of our overreactions to this pandemic have turned out to be the proper reactions.

In a state and a world with economies that are fueled by trade and travel and other human interaction, there are many logistical reasons why we can’t erect the perfect barriers such as travel restrictions and quarantines that could quickly end future threats from the outside. But we can work to eliminate islands of inequities that exist in our health care systems, because these may be the petri dishes that nurture the next monster that erupts to produce the next pandemic. So much of our health and survival depends on our ability to – with clearer lenses – rediscover our surrounding environments and reimagine our communities as we view into this new world. Such success will require that we rely on the evidence and science-based decision making that makes us smarter and stronger so that we may better understand these complicated problems and muster the social cohesion required to solve them.    

This is more than our chance to become better prepared to fight an even deadlier biological Godzilla-20 or 21 that epidemiologists warn could attack us in the future. We might use this opportunity to reestablish healthier families and cultures, as the importance of household and neighborhood communication replaces alienation and isolation. Cooperation and community could replace selfish cynicism, tribalism, and hyper-competition for the few remaining scraps. Through it all, our appreciation and love for geography can be rekindled as we become more prepared for future disasters such as that catastrophic earthquake that is in our future. The least imaginative leaders have already forced us to confront moral and philosophical questions about the importance of money and wealth versus life and health, as if they could be neatly separated for conflict. This might be an opportunity to recognize how our economy AND public health are powerfully connected: sick workers operate sick economies; healthy Californians are more productive Californians.

While keeping my social distance in the checkout lines, I have done some rough surveys. Why were so many people hoarding products that are easily restocked by reliable supply chains, even during a crisis like this? After all, farmers must continue to bring their food to markets as it becomes edible. The California Grocers Association reassures us and demonstrates how the supply chain is intact and reliable, so what is fueling this irrational and wasteful panic buying? The other day, I asked the person in front of me why he had filled his cart with so many plastic bottles of water. He blamed it on orders from his wife, but like every other bottled water hoarder I’ve asked, his only answer was that “everyone else was doing it.” Yet anyone knowledgeable about our state’s water delivery systems knows that our inexpensive tap water is usually as good or better quality than plastic bottled water that costs as much as gasoline, except for very few neighborhoods and isolated communities suffering from locally contaminated water (especially groundwater) supplies. Still, companies pushing their bottled water have made fortunes off convincing millions of clueless Californians to waste their hard-earned money to buy something that is already offered to them almost for free, with or without a home filter. Meanwhile, the unnecessary plastic bottle waste piles up in our landfills and on our beaches while consumers drain their wallets to pay for something they don’t need. It’s another Tragedy of the Commons drama that can be eased with some knowledge of geography.

And spatial epidemiologists can tell you that riding your bike or walking with your family on the beach or a mountain trail is perfectly safe as long as you keep your safe social distance. Especially during these times, everyone can benefit from decreasing stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rates in open and natural environments that can strengthen our natural immune systems and quell our nature deficit disorders. Enjoy neighborhood walks, find a garden, but keep your safe social distance. Still, there is pressure to close all of our calming public spaces during this crisis at the expense of our freedom to stay physically and mentally fit. Conflicts and debates quickly erupt as medical experts tell us there is no threat to anyone who observes proper social distancing in open air environments, while these activities often result in enormous improvements to our physical and mental well-being. What do you think is healthier personal and social behavior?…remaining cooped up behind four walls, or walking along an open trail in fresh air under an open sky with or without your family, while maintaining safe social distances?…disconnected inaction or engaged participation? A little bit more knowledge about diseases and our need to connect to our surrounding environments would help us make better choices.

Geography helps us understand why particular public parks and trails were forced to close after selfies and social media over-advertised them as escapes from the Godzilla drama. Parts of Marin County to Pt. Reyes, Newport and Laguna Beach, and other popular local, state, and national parks and nature trails adjacent to our largest urban areas were overrun and then first to close when the hordes were crammed dangerously closer than the social distance required. This heaps greater burdens on the fewer public spaces remaining open until they are forced to close under a cascading negative ripple effect. Unintended consequences take over. One- or half-day journeys to the open, expansive, calming places have been thwarted by closures sometimes encouraged by wealthy locals who are fortunate to live adjacent to the resources, but who might fear the crowds more than the virus. Tragedy of the Commons revisited.

We are challenged to imagine more sustainable ways of reacting and how we might eventually reopen our state and our lives, especially as this crisis carries on for months, particularly when the curve is finally falling. When the threat eases, more effort can be made to warn potential visitors about overcrowded open spaces so they can be avoided. Officials might coordinate with local volunteers to direct, disperse, and educate visitors along one-way loop trails and other outdoor experiences that encourage social distancing so that all parks and beaches might reopen. Alternating parking days permitting only odd or even license plates or birth years could cut crowds at other public areas. There are many other examples as simple as this one smart sign that read, “Our public parks are open. Please maintain safe social distance.”, until even that park was later closed. If you think these ideas are unworkable, here’s a chance to propose your own solutions instead of sitting back, watching, and complaining.

A wave of volunteers, cooperation, and social cohesion will be required to avoid dangerous congregating in our cherished open spaces so that we can conquer this monster. Our path toward freedom and sanity will require a bold vision and strategy, a labor-intensive effort that we haven’t seen in many decades. It will necessitate unprecedented coordination between local, state, and federal agencies and officials. But we cannot let this attack from nature further disconnect us from our physical geography, from what is really vital to our health and survival, the natural world that nurtures us. Without these herculean efforts, we may become the latest victims living through our five stages of grief over our many losses within our manufactured Tragedy of the Commons in a sort of Godzilla Meets the Twilight Zone landscape and culture.

Visiting any store, business, neighborhood, or public place during this crisis, you can’t help wishing that the late screenwriter, Rod Serling, could have lived to witness real people behaving as the characters in the stories he once imagined for us, the stories that could make us look in the mirror and love what we could be or hate what we have become.

You can see that there are many new and urgent reasons why we will be sharing more of our own stories about the Golden State to inform and to explore with you while we are all fighting together and finally recovering from this Godzilla-19 monster. It is a perfect opportunity to imagine how we can open a new door and live up to our potential to become the state we want to be. And as Rod Serling once declared, you unlock this door with the key of imagination. Stay tuned.

This snapshot story ends with the late Maya Angelou’s words that seem more relevant than ever: “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

The post COVID-19 Attacks California first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Recently, a UC Berkeley team of scientists used new technologies that included satellite imagery to show that the creep along the Hayward Fault continued farther south than previously thought. This added to evidence that the Hayward Fault was connected to the Calaveras Fault, which continues much farther southeast past Gilroy. This is more than a technicality: it suggests that this connected structure may be capable of delivering an even more powerful and devastating earthquake to a larger region compared to distinct, individual faults.

By 2017, as the seismic research progressed in northern California, another significant discovery was being made far to the south. Scientists were using a combination of studies to show how stepovers of up to a mile may link what were once considered separate active faults. This research in southern California includes a collection of years of oil company seismic surveys and Scripps Institute of Oceanography seafloor studies.  Scientists found that San Diego’s Rose Canyon Fault was connected to the Newport Inglewood Fault by step overs less than a mile, linking them as one continuous fault. This suggests that the San Diego area is more closely connected than previously thought to the seismic risks that have long been established in the Los Angeles area.  

Read more:

http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/04/02/calaveras-hayward-fault-link-means-potentially-larger-quakes/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JB013467/epdf

Another interesting source to learn about the Hayward Fault is Horst Rademacher’s (UC Berkeley) walking field guide: The Hayward Fault at the Campus of UC Berkeley: A Guide to a Brief Walking Tour, June 7, 2017

https://seismo.berkeley.edu/docs/HF_Tour_Stadium-1.1-Protected.pdf

The post New Technologies For Understanding Seismic Risks first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

There is a region in California that experiences more frequent damaging earthquakes and tsunami than anywhere on the U.S. West Coast outside Alaska. It is a region where subduction is still active and catastrophic earthquakes over 8 magnitude are capable of producing tsunami up to 15m (45 feet) high. Entire strips of coastline and even patches of forests have been submerged under water as other landscapes have been lifted higher by these tectonic events that have left recent footprints throughout the state’s northwest coast. This is a region that more resembles the Oregon coast, a region seismologists and geologists label the Cascadian Subduction Zone.

Here, accomplished award-winning geophysicist Dr. Lori Dengler guides us through these broken landscapes on a field trip sponsored by the California Geographical Society in the spring of 2015. A series of buckles and thrusts in the crust are evident here, north of where the north-south trending San Andreas system is cut off by the east-west Mendocino Fault. This Cascadian Subduction Zone megathrust belt runs about 700 miles from Cape Mendocino to Vancouver Island. The plate boundary gently slopes from the ocean floor about 45 miles offshore to about 8 miles below Humboldt Bay, then deeper below the surface farther inland. The result is a youthful fold and thrust belt landscape that includes at least 6 active thrust faults in the Humboldt Bay region.

Each fault breaks with occasional earthquakes that have been thrusting up deformed marine terraces and downwarping the bays and marshes. The greatest events have dropped the bays and lagoons after marsh peats were established during centuries of relative stability. These lowlands are susceptible to liquefaction, soil amplification, subsidence, and tsunami inundation during these spasmodic events. Thick layers of mud and other sediment are suddenly deposited, burying the old peat and building up a new surface where another stable layer of peat can grow. A few more centuries pass until the next mega earthquake continues these cycles that have been correlated in time with similar tectonic shifts along the Oregon and Washington coasts. The last major event (January 1700) was so large, it sent a teletsunami that was still several meters high when it arrived in Japan. There are even Native American (Yurok) stories of how these megaquakes and their tsunami flooded bays in the region before recorded history.

The good news is this tectonic activity has produced diverse and scenic topographic features that give unique beauty to this quiet coast of cool mist. The bad news is there have been 24 tsunami recorded on this northwest coast since 1855, though 19 came from great distances, and Crescent City has suffered more tsunami damage than any West Coast city outside Alaska. And though smaller damaging earthquakes are likely within the next few years, seismologists estimate the probability of the big one at about 15-20% within 50 years. Join us as we explore evidence of these compressional forces and catastrophic events from the top of the thrusts and anticlines into the downwarped lagoons and bays.

Special thanks to Dr. Lori Dengler, Humboldt State University, and the California Geographical Society.

If you are looking for more, consult Chapters 2 and 3 of our book and try these sources:

• Recently completed relative tsunami hazard maps of the Humboldt Bay region
• Relative tsunami hazard mapping for Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, California
• Living on Shaky Ground: How to Survive Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Northern California
• Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group

The post Chasing Earthquakes and Tsunami in Humboldt County and the Northwest Coast first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

This project and this web site have necessarily highlighted the profound impacts of an accelerating technological revolution on the Golden State’s people and landscapes. From geospatial technologies to e-commerce distribution centers, new technologies continue to make radical changes in the ways and the locations where we carry out our daily activities.

The latest example erupted in 2018 and has impacted nearly every mobile person who leaves home in our more crowded urban environments. As if suddenly falling from the sky or spewing from some mysterious volcano of technology and engineering, e-scooters became popular and then ubiquitous in nearly all of our more densely packed urban landscapes by 2018. And though the eruption happened fastest and is most obvious in the state’s larger urban areas, they have impacted smaller cities (such as around Lake Tahoe) from near our northern to our southern borders. Like most new innovations, they caught regulators and traffic engineers by surprise, creating a Wild West atmosphere that jarred many off their feet or out of their cars. 

These scooters can be discarded and relocated anywhere, they only require a smart phone and credit card and a dollar to get started, and they have allowed us to redefine and rethink how to make short efficient trips that could not be served by cars or public transportation. The companies Bird and then Lime quickly distributed them across urban landscapes and just as quickly became multi-billion-dollar businesses. As one might expect, a host of issues and controversies soon erupted over motorized scooters.

Pedestrian space rights advocates complained about reckless scooter riders on sidewalks and other paths at speeds up to 15 mph. As some scooters zipped around pedestrians unwilling to give up their limited spaces, other riders were crunched into already dense traffic lanes with too few safe pathways. Breaking state and local laws, most rode without helmets, many were obviously children without licenses, and some even rode with passengers. The results could have been predicted: a rash of accidents with serious injuries and some of the victims weren’t even riding the scooters. Others complained about the abandoned scooters cluttering pathways and neighborhoods as they waited for the next rider or the part-time employee that would take them home for a recharge.   

Some cities responded with temporary bans until they figured out how to deal with this scooter chaos and the accompanying liabilities. But most cities searched for a regulatory environment that might encourage this clean and efficient form of short trip connective commuting without endangering the commuters. Here is an example where each community sought a general template that could then be redesigned to suit their specific needs and urban landscapes as they envision more sustainable transportation infrastructures.

The long-term health impacts range far beyond safety. Just as popular electric bikes allow us to go farther and faster without the exertion, so do the new e-scooters take pedestrians off their feet for a quicker commute at the expense of an invigorating walk. Several communities were also demanding that e-scooters be made equally accessible to low-income neighborhoods instead of only concentrating where the already well-to-do could conveniently zip farther ahead. 

Depending on when and where you are reading this, you may already know whether this was just another short-term fad or another lasting technological revolution that took advantage of California’s mild weather to democratize transportation and make us wonder why someone didn’t think of it sooner. Here’s to a happy and safe commute.    

Wanna Ride?

Properly discarded off the boardwalk path, these e-scooters are ready for their next riders.

New Rules?

Racing to make new rules that keep up with the technology.

Bikes for Rent

Most of the bikes at this station are already rented and on the bicycle path, but e-scooters are scattered everywhere.

e-Scooter Etiquette

An e-scooter rider properly uses the bicycle path as she passes pedestrians in the background.

e-Tickets?

Enforcing these new rules and training people to follow them may be a bigger challenge.

The post E-scooters Remake Urban Transportation in California first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

In previous editions of our publication, we considered the impact that big box superstores and California Indian casinos were having on the state’s economies and landscapes. They particularly stand out on the urban fringe of towns and cities, the exurbs that offer cheap land for development, but are still within convenient distances to customers and labor pools being drawn away from more traditional businesses near the center of town.

There are many examples where these megastores and combination gambling and entertainment attractions on the fringe have left already struggling main streets empty. More recently, e-commerce shoppers have fueled the development of even larger warehouse and distribution centers (led by Amazon) in those same exurbs, with similar results. Note how many brick-and-mortar stores have been abandoned by on-line shoppers demanding quick delivery of their purchased products that come from these warehouses staffed mostly with blue-collar workers.

These developments have transformed economies within struggling communities that may be located far beyond the wealth and excitement of our major coastal cities, yet another example of how the two Californias remain powerfully evident AND connected. In our 4^th edition, we examine some of these recent changes that are remaking the state’s people and landscapes.

This February 2018 article in the Atlantic, What Amazon Does to Poor Cities, takes you to specific communities in California (from the Inland Empire’s San Bernardino, Moreno Valley and high desert, to Fresno and Stockton) for a critique of how this new economy is impacting that other California.  

The following images illustrate how Patterson is strategically located far out in the exurbs, where there is relatively inexpensive real estate. But it is also adjacent to vital transportation corridors that provide convenient links to the surrounding region and even into the Bay Area.

The post Amazon and e-commerce: New Jobs and Economies Transform Landscapes first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

But that leaves plenty of spatial error to exploit. For instance, in past years, residents of the Sierra Nevada foothills community of O’Neals cited historical markers that placed the center somewhere near their Spring Valley School. Using the latest technologies, more recent measuring surveys by geography students and others have finally zeroed in on what seems to be the accepted location a little farther up North Fork Road near North Fork.

According to surveys completed by volunteers from Fresno State University (including an official state surveyor) and the National Forest Service and the USGS, this is the confirmed geographic center of California as of 2017: latitude 37°09′58″N, longitude 119°26′58″W or (depending on how your GPS reads) 37.16611°N, 119.44944°W. The residents of North Fork have maintained a sign next to their road declaring their town as the center. Local organizations that include the North Fork History Group dedicated a plaque at the verified site a few miles southeast of North Fork along Road 225. By 2017, it had been replaced by a new plaque at the end of some stairs where you may also find a “CAL CENTER” marker. It is fittingly surrounded by an iconic California Sierra Nevada foothills woodland that includes oak and buckeye, but don’t expect to find much human activity there.

If you would like to go there, the late Huell Howser produced a video about this site: Center of California- California’s Gold (608)

The post Finding California’s Geographic Center first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.